As the commemorative programme comes to an end, Professor Norman Drummond CBE FRSE, chair of the Scottish Commemorations Panel and WW100 Scotland, reflects on the final year of events in Scotland, and what we have learned from it all.

To mark the Centenary of the First Armistice, Professor Norman Drummond, chair of WW100 Scotland the Scottish Commemorations Panel, has composed a commemorative prayer. It was read by three generations of a German/Scottish family, along with Commonwealth representatives from Canada, Australia and New Zealand at Scotland’s Commemorative Service for the Centenary of the First Armistice.

As we commemorate the centenary of the death and funeral of Elsie Inglis, we also reflect on the remarkable accomplishments her brave and determined Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH) colleagues. In this post, Marsali Taylor shares the story of her Aunt Ysabel, who worked as an ambulance driver on the Romanian front.

I am a Serb living in Scotland. Ask anyone in Serbia about Elsie Inglis and there is a very good chance they will be able to tell you something about this remarkable Scottish woman. So deeply ingrained is she into the fabric of Serbian history she holds the status of heroine and is known fondly as “our mother from Scotland”.

Amateur historian and landscape gardener Alan Cumming has been researching the story of Elsie and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for four years. While attending a football match in Serbia where Elsie spent most of her war years and is affectionately known as the ‘Serbian mother from Scotland’, he saw a commemorative plaque and wanted to know more. Here, he shares some of his knowledge to tell Elsie’s remarkable story.

Wilfred Owen is renowned as one of the most influential World War One poets. To commemorate the centenary of his stay at Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Hospital in 1917 where he penned some of his most famous work, a series of events has taken place across the city.Read more

Over the last seven years, Ian McCracken, archivist at Govan High School in Glasgow, has dedicated his time to researching the lives of the 64 men named on the school’s war memorial. In a guest blog in April, he paid tribute to the seven who fell at Arras, and now, as the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele approaches, he remembers a further three former pupils.

On 22 May 1915, 216 men from the 1st/7th (Leith) Battalion of The Royal Scots were killed and a further 220 were injured when they were involved in a collision near Gretna as they made their way to Gallipoli to fight in World War One.

A visitor to some of the many Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries in northern France might be surprised to find that there are a significant number of headstones which have the Royal Naval anchor inscribed upon them. In addition to sailors they will also find Royal Marines buried alongside. This is not an anomaly, for not only are there hundreds of such headstones scattered across a number of cemeteries, the Arras Memorial to the Forgotten which lists the names of those who have no graves, has no less than 692 of those belonging to the men of the Royal Naval Division.

As we commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Arras, it is important we share the stories of some of the brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice. Two of these men were Corporal John Connell and Lance Sergeant Ian Gowan.Read more

As the centenary commemorations of the Battle of Arras take place in Arras and Edinburgh on Sunday 9th April, we take some time to remember another two of the 18,000 Scots who so tragically lost their lives during the battle, whose stories have been shared by their descendants.

Over the last seven years, Ian McCracken, archivist at Govan High School in Glasgow, has dedicated his time to researching the lives of the 64 men named on the school’s war memorial. Here, he pays tribute to the seven who fell at Arras, who will also be remembered at commemorations taking place in Scotland and France on Sunday 9 April.

The Battle of Arras had the highest concentration of Scottish troops fighting in a single battle during World War One, with 18,000 of them sadly losing their lives. Descendants of two of those who fought at Arras have come forward to share their stories.

On the 100th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Somme, we share the final instalment in our commemorative series of poignant poems, kindly provided by the Scottish Poetry Library. Predicting the coming waves of war tourism, poet J.E. Stewart indicates that the prospect of people visiting the battlefields feels too intrusive. But 100 years later, we do, and should, still visit the fields of battle in order never to forget what happened there.